Akwa Ibom tops 2016 FAAC allocation with over N116.6 billion – NEITI

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The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) says Akwa Ibom received the highest allocation of N116.6 billion from the federation account in 2016.

Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, the Director, Communications of NEITI, made this known in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.

According to the latest Quarterly Review of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) by NEITI, Lagos and Rivers followed Akwa Ibom with N109.3 billion and 103.98 billion.

The report, which is the third in the series by NEITI, examined the breakdown and analysis of disbursements from the federation account to the three tiers of government.

It also looked at the Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) of the states in 2016.

The report showed that Kwara and Ebonyi received the least federal allocations of N30.08 billion and N30.09 billion.

On allocation to local governments, the report said that Lagos topped the table with a total of N69.29 billion allocated to the 20 local governments in the state.

It showed that the 44 local governments in Kano State received a total of N56.16 billion also in 2016.

On disbursements to the Federal Government in 2016, the report disclosed the total FAAC allocation stood at N2.08 trillion as against the N6.06 trillion budgeted for that year, which represented about 34 per cent of the budget.

It noted that the implication could be linked to the noticeable challenges by the Federal Government to meet recurrent expenditure needs estimated at N2.6 trillion in 2016.

The report highlighted that payments to the three tiers of government had continued to decline by an average of 40 per cent between 2013 and 2016.

“The Federal Government received N3.711 trillion in 2013 and this fell by 43.9per cent to N2.08 trillion in 2016,’’ the report said.

Similarly, disbursements to State Governments totalled N3.095 trillion in 2013.

According to the NEITI, in 2016, States received N1.642 trillion, which represented a 46.9 per cent decline on the 2013 figures; local governments received total disbursements amounting to N1.011 trillion in 2016.

It said that this was 40.7 per cent lower than the figure of N1.708 trillion they received in 2013.

Comparing 2015 and 2016 figures, NEITI’s publication disclosed that the revenues disbursed by FAAC to the three tiers of government fell by 15 per cent from N6.011 trillion in 2015 to N5.121 trillion in 2016.

Other features of the review were in the areas of IGR of the federation, the rising debt profiles and the concern of Nigerians for state governments to lessen dependence on federal allocations.

NEITI noted that Nigerians wanted the state governments to reduce their dependence on federal allocations through creative means of developing capacity to increase IGR.

“IGR is very low in most states and it is only in two states of Lagos and Ogun that the IGR is higher than FAAC allocations.

“Figures show that total revenue by itself cannot fund states budget,’’ it said.

The report added that the revenues of all the states government fell drastically short of the budgets projections.

It cited some states like Lagos which had a budget of N662.60 billion, but the total revenue that accrued to it was N410.5billion leaving a shortfall of about N252 billion.

Adamawa had revenue of N41.05 billion against a budget of N130.10 billion; while Nassarawa had revenue of N32.5 billion to fund a budget of N77.30 billion.

It further stated that some states such as Cross River, Sokoto, Borno, Jigawa, Osun and Plateau had total revenues in 2016 which were below 30 per cent of their budgets.

The report noted that the debt profile of the state governments were rapidly on the increase.

The review showed that Lagos State had the highest debt of N603.25 billion as against the state’s revenue of N410.5billion for 2016.

It said that this was followed by Delta with N331.95 billion debt as against N142.28 of its revenue.

It said Osun and Akwa Ibom states took the third and fourth place on rising debt profile with N165.91 billion and N161.23billion.

According to the report, Yobe and Anambra stood out clearly as states with the least debt burden, while Yobe was indebted to the tune of N11.74billion.

Anambra owed N20.60billion, according to NEITI-FACC report.

On rising debt profile, it said the case of Osun, Cross River and Delta states raised major concerns giving the fact that their total borrowings were found by the NEITI to be more than double the total revenues accruing to the states.

NEITI maintained that “considering that most states already have a high debt burden, the possibility of even higher debts for the states remain quite high.”

The report, however, projected that government revenues would increase following upward movement in global oil prices.

‘’Oil production which was down from January to August 2016, has started rising.”

The report noted that there had been a gradual rise in oil prices from 30.70 dollars per barrel in 2016 to 54.58 dollars per barrel in January 2017.

It added that If this trend continued, government revenue would likely increase and would improve the ability of both Federal and State governments to fund their budgets. (NAN)

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